Irrefutable Evidence and a Restart
The online storm has not subsided; instead, it has snowballed and grown larger.
A mix of voices emerged: some rationalists demanded a thorough investigation into judicial injustice; some conspiracy theorists used the issue to question the entire system; and some with ulterior motives exaggerated the situation and desperately tried to stir up trouble.
Of course, there were also plenty of onlookers who simply enjoyed the spectacle. The word "hot" following related topics on the trending topics list remained for days, and the huge traffic and attention transformed into substantial pressure, like an invisible giant hand tightly gripping the relevant law enforcement agencies.
The instructions from higher authorities became increasingly severe, with their core message clear and unquestionable:
A special task force has been established to thoroughly investigate this case, eliminating all interference and sparing no expense! We must respond to public doubts with irrefutable facts and uphold the dignity of the law!
When the state's machinery of violence, especially the sophisticated and powerful public security organs, is truly wound up and running at full speed, the energy it unleashes is unimaginable to ordinary people.
Funding, human resources, and technical resources were quickly allocated to the case, and details that might have been overlooked due to the "simple nature of the case" were brought back to the forefront and examined repeatedly with a magnifying glass or even a microscope.
A new task force, directly commanded by the municipal bureau and with members having no connection to Zhang Qian's former workplace, was quickly established. Their first action was to discard all preconceived notions from the original case files and treat the case as a completely new and unresolved one.
The scope of the investigation was expanded indefinitely. The task force retrieved all available public surveillance cameras, private surveillance footage from businesses, and even traffic violation records from nearby roads on the day of the incident. The hard drive data filled an entire room. Technical police officers worked day and night to screen the footage, leaving no frame unchecked that might contain clues.
Meanwhile, a second and third round of more detailed field investigations were launched. This time, the targets of the interviews were not only the known students and faculty members who were in the library that day, but also everyone who might have passed through that area.
The questions asked were more in-depth and open-ended, no longer limited to "did you see the conflict," but included "did you notice anything unusual" and "was anyone filming?" The task force even issued a public notice through official channels to solicit clues, attaching a map of the approximate time and area of the incident, encouraging anyone present that day, regardless of the size of the clue, to contact the police.
Under this intense investigation, which was almost like "finding a needle in a haystack" yet also involved "digging three feet into the ground," a nearly forgotten clue quietly surfaced.
During his third visit to a female college student who had been sitting not far from the bookshelf where the incident occurred, a young police officer on the special investigation team, adhering to the principle of not overlooking any possibility, asked one more question:
"Student, please think back carefully. Did you take any photos or videos with your phone that day? It might not have been intentional; you might have just taken some casual photos for fun, or been video chatting with someone?"
The girl frowned and thought for a long time, then suddenly exclaimed, "Ah! Officer, I remember now! That afternoon, my parents asked me how the school environment was, and I think I video chatted with them on WeChat for a little while. I just casually glanced around with my phone... but I really didn't notice anything I took, and I didn't delete it afterward. I don't know if it's useful..."
The police officers immediately became alert, quickly and carefully retrieved the girl's phone, and strictly followed procedures to secure and back up the evidence.
The next forty-eight hours were a sleepless fortnight for the technical department. The video file was copied to a professional image processing workstation. Because it was a local cache from a video call, the resolution was already low, and the image was shaky due to being handheld, making the background figures even more blurry. The initial rounds of routine enhancement processing did not yield ideal results.
But the task force did not give up and invited experts from the provincial technical support department. The expert team used more advanced algorithms to analyze the video frame by frame, perform super-resolution reconstruction, dynamic noise reduction, and light compensation... one frame, two frames, ten frames... the tedious and tedious work continued.
Finally, after performing special processing on a three-second segment of video data, a miracle occurred!
The image has been clearly restored and magnified—although facial details are still blurry, the figures, movements, and relative positions are sufficiently discernible! The image clearly shows:
Lin Feng had his back to the camera, leaned slightly forward, and was pulling a book from the top shelf with his right hand. His entire attention was clearly on the book.
At a distance to his side and slightly behind, Sun Tingting did indeed take a step forward and lean slightly forward, but her arm and Lin Feng's body always maintained a safe distance, at least 20 or 30 centimeters apart at the closest point, with absolutely no possibility of any actual contact!
More importantly, Lin Feng didn't even turn his head once from beginning to end; his gaze remained fixed on the bookshelf. The so-called "lewd look" and "harassment from a distance" became a complete joke in the face of this unwavering image!
Objective physical evidence! Irrefutable objective physical evidence!
This short video, like a lightning bolt tearing through the clouds, instantly illuminated all the dark corners covered by lies! It is cold and objective, devoid of any subjective emotion, yet more powerful than any words!
Almost simultaneously, the internal disciplinary investigation into He, the former presiding judge of the first instance trial, also made crucial progress. Although the judiciary is independent, Zhang Qian's explicit statement of being a "good friend" in the recording, along with some irregular exchanges discovered during the subsequent investigation, constituted solid clues for suspected violations of discipline and regulations. Presiding Judge He was immediately suspended from all duties and placed under isolation and investigation.
Based on newly discovered, conclusive, and compelling physical evidence pointing to innocence, and given the urgent situation where the presiding judge of the original trial was suspected of serious misconduct and could potentially affect a fair trial, the prosecution responded extremely quickly.
They proactively submitted an emergency retrial application to the Intermediate People's Court of the city, along with a complete set of new evidence and technical appraisal reports, explicitly recommending that the court initiate second-instance proceedings to correct the wrongful conviction.
The Intermediate People's Court of the city attached great importance to this matter and convened an emergency meeting to review it. After verifying the authenticity, legality, and relevance of the evidence, the court made a decision with unprecedented efficiency:
The prosecutor's application for an emergency retrial is approved, and the original erroneous judgment in the first instance is overturned! This case will be directly tried in this court, and the hearing is scheduled for seven days later!
The official release of the news through official channels was like a drop of water falling into a boiling pot of public opinion, instantly sparking a new but now different round of heated discussion.
While the public was shocked by the clarity of the truth, they also began to pay attention to the courage and efficiency of the judicial system in "self-correcting" itself. Although there were still dissenting voices, rational voices gradually gained the upper hand, and people began to expect that the scales of justice would eventually return to fairness.